Ohio CPS News Archive

Ohio News Coverage

A boy hosed down in the driveway with the outside temperature in the 20s. A handicapped girl repeatedly struck in the face. Another child hit in the back of the legs with a sawed-off broom for talking out of turn.

These were some of the disciplinary abuses neighbors described yesterday as the trial of Sharen and Michael Gravelle on charges of abusing their 11 adopted children entered its second week in Huron County Common Pleas Court.

The man prosecuting Michael and Sharen Gravelle on child-endangering charges gives these examples of his own parenting: He once kicked his teenage son out of the car and made him walk two blocks in minus-15 degree weather.

He gave his son burns by dragging him across the carpet for not going to swim lessons. Fortunately, he said, the statute of limitations has run out. Huron County Prosecutor Russ Leffler made the comments last week while questioning potential jurors in the Gravelles' trial.

Tougher standards for foster parents top a legislative wish list prompted by the death of 3-year-old Marcus Fiesel.

Mandatory credit checks, direct reference checks and harsher penalties for licensed foster parents who harm foster kids are among the laws child-welfare advocates hope the new Ohio General Assembly will pass when it convenes next year.

A Toledo mother whose son took two bags of suspected crack cocaine to his elementary school in April received a suspended jail sentence and was placed on probation for a year.

Andrea Campbell, 26, of 3234 North Detroit Ave. was sentenced by Toledo Municipal Court Judge Francis X. Gorman to 60 days in the Corrections Center of Northwest Ohio, Stryker, but he suspended all of the days.

In light of two recent Ohio cases involving the tragic abuse of children, allegedly by adults responsible for their care, a new state law goes into effect this week, and Adams County's child welfare agency expects more changes to come.

The piece of legislation was written after another high profile Ohio case, in Huron County, came to light. In that case, Sharen and Michael Gravelle were under scrutiny in 2005 for keeping their 11 adopted special-needs children in cages.

The Early Learning Initiative program, jointly administered by the Department of Education and the Department of Job and Family Services, provides:

-Early learning and child care to income-eligible children, and effectively eliminates Head Start.

-Establishes a program to support ECE (preschool) programs offered by school districts and educational service centers to serve preschool children whose families earn up to 200% of the federal poverty guidelines.

-Prohibits specified ECE programs from receiving state funds in fiscal years
2006 and 2007 unless at least 50% of the program's teachers are working toward an associate degree and, beginning in fiscal year 2008, prohibits any such program from receiving state funds unless all of the program's teachers have an associate degree.

-Permits an accredited Montessori program that is licensed as a preschool program to combine three- to five-year-old preschool children with kindergarteners.